Dec 23 2008
Anti-Coal Ads From This is Reality
I love that ThisisReality.org is a new organization dedicated to exposing how filthy dirty and polluting coal is, but they need to work on these ads. They are way too subtle. Humor when talking about coal? I don’t think this is going to be an effective ad campaign. Their first ad was bad enough: a guy shouting outside with the wind blowing, nearly incomprehensible and vague on message. This one is even worse. A mildly amusing ad about a guy smudging his nose with a lump of coal is ridiculous. What is their objective here? Ads like these are not helping very much.
And you can barely see the smudge. This ad would only have been effective if the man rubbed the coal all over his face and acted like he had completely lost his mind. Imagine how effective and obvious that would have been. This ad is far, far too subtle.
The Facts
Burning coal is a leading source of global warming pollution.
“GHG Emissions and Sinks 1990–2006,” US EPA 2008
Burning coal is the dirtiest way we produce electricity.
“Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Generation of Electric Power in the United States,” US DOE 2000.; “GHG Emissions and Sinks 1990-2006,” US EPA 2008
The coal industry is spending millions advertising “clean” coal, but not a single “clean” coal power plant exists in the U.S. today. (And this is the type of ad you see here fighting this effort?)
“Big Coal Campaigning to Keep Its Industry on Candidates’ Minds,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 20, 2008 (link); IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme CO2 Capture and Storage Database (link); Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies Program at MIT, CO2 Capture and Storage Project Database (link)
These are serious issues and they call forS erious ads–we are way past the time when subtlety and humor were appropriate. It’s time to kick some Big Coal butt. The only way to do that is to use facts, anger, shock, illness, black lung disease, hospital scenes, sick people, property damage, topless mountains and clogged streams. And scenes like this from the Tennessee environmental disaster of the other day:
